Mississippi Geothermal Resources

The MDEQ Office of Geology has been collecting and publishing information about the geology and mineral resources of the state since the inception of the Mississippi Geological Survey in 1850. Among the geological resources studied by the Office of Geology is the heat of the interior of the Earth.

The Glossary of Geology published by the American Geological Institute defines geothermal energy as “heat energy that occurs naturally in the Earth and that can be extracted and used.” Mississippi may lack geysers and active volcanoes, but we have large volumes of warm salt water coproduced from oil and gas wells. Technology exists to extract useful energy from such warm fluids. Therefore in Mississippi we are concentrating efforts on collection of data about bottom hole temperatures (BHT) from the headers of geophysical logs in our files.

The data will be contributed to the State Geothermal Data project, organized by the Association of American State Geologists (AASG) with funding from the Department of Energy. This project will bring data from all 50 States into the National Geothermal Data System (NGDS). We are digitizing at-risk, legacy geothermal-relevant data and publishing existing digital data by exposing databases and directories to the network. A limited amount of new data in areas lacking critical information is also being collected.

The Association of American State Geologists (AASG) represents the State Geologists of the 50 United States and Puerto Rico. Founded in 1908, AASG seeks to advance the science and practical application of geology and related Earth sciences in the United States and its territories, commonwealths, and possessions.

State Geological Surveys in the U.S. have thousands of databases, directories, and 85,000+ geologic maps that collectively constitute a national geoscience data “backbone” for research and applications.

The links on the left side of this page are to the Arizona Geological Survey, which is managing the State Geothermal Data project for the AASG, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the funding agency, and the National Geothermal Data System, which is a DOE-funded distributed network of databases and data sites. Visitors to those sites will see that this geothermal resources project is a collaboration of many universities and government agencies.

The US GIN Project

The US Geoscience Information Network (GIN) is a system of state and federal geological survey online data providers and user applications linked together by a collection of shared web services and interchange formats for the purpose of finding, accessing, and using geoscientific information.

The objective of the GIN project is to develop standardized services to make data resources of the state and federal geological surveys accessible online in a distributed network using a few standards and protocols, and to work with data providers to implement these services. The network is open to all providers and users. We hope it will become a core component of the emerging cyberinfrastructure for the Earth Sciences.